“Look at me.”
She did not turn her head. Somehow, she knew that if she turned her head, she would lose.
She was already losing. She could feel her pulse hammering at the base of her throat, could feel the heat flaring under her gown.
The room was somehow too bright and too quiet at once, and the Duke of Langton had just told her about a brother she had not known he had, and she could not—wouldnot—turn her head.
“Lady Alice,” he said again, his voice softer.
She turned her head.
CHAPTER 3
He was closer than she had expected.
That was the first thing Alice noticed when she turned her head. He had not moved, or she had not seen him move, and yet his shoulder was nearly at her chest now, and his face was close enough that she could see the faint shadow along his jaw, the small pale scar at the edge of his eyebrow she had never noticed before, and the steady gray of his eyes.
He has lashes.
Of course, he had lashes. What a ridiculous thought. Everybody had lashes. But she had never noticed his because she had spent two years looking at him from a safe distance and finding him objectionable, and she had not, until tonight, been close enough to notice anything about his face except the disapproval on it.
“What are you doing?” she whispered.
“Hold still.”
“Your Grace.”
“Lady Alice.”
“You cannot.”
“I can.”
“You cannot. Look around you.”
“I have.”
“Your Grace, you despise me.”
“I am aware.”
“Then you cannot.”
“I am sorry, Lady Alice.”
“For what?”
“I will tell you in a moment.”
He lifted his hand. He did it with the same quiet, unhurried slowness with which he did everything. She watched it come upbetween them. And with all the calm in the world, she watched his thumb and forefinger take her chin and gently tilt her face up to his.
She did not breathe.
For one absurd second, she thought he would not do it. He was so calm, holding her face the way one held a book one was about to read.
The room was very loud, and her plan for the evening had involved a stranger and a count of four. But Cassian Arnolds was not a stranger, and there was no count, and she could not, for the life of her, make her mouth move.
She had never been kissed before.
